Last picture show: Vinegar Hill to close after 37 years

Vinegar Hill manager James Ford has been coming to the Charlottesville institution all his life.

photo by Lisa Provence

It's not like Vinegar Hill Theatre hasn't been on the ropes for years now, since Regal opened a six-screen theater on the Downtown Mall in 1996 and since the rise of the VCR. Last fall, the theater sold merchandise to meet the latest shift in technology and buy expensive digital equipment, which was installed in February.

It wasn't enough.

On July 30, when it became clear that the first-run independent theater was unable to get first-run movies, owner Adam Greenbaum and manager James Ford decided it was time to call it quits.

In a press release, they list changes in the film industry, such as the rising popularity of streaming movies in the comfort of one's home. But the primary force in Vinegar Hill's demise? The small independent theater was crushed by Regal after it opened its Stonefield 14-screen multiplex last fall.

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"The reason for our closing," says Ford, "was a more common one— a locally owned traditional business being replaced by a chain, the same that happens with small businesses when a Walmart opens."

Vinegar Hill found it couldn't get movies that hadn't already been shown in town or that weren't already available on video, to use another now-antiquated term. Of the 21 first-run screens in town, "20 are owned by Regal," says Ford. "We have one."

Regal has 7,343 screens in 577 theaters in 42 states. Greenbaum owns the Visulite and Dixie theaters in Staunton, and with Vinegar Hill, that's seven screens in Virginia. "It's not enough to compete with a giant chain," says Ford.

Carmike has already felt the sting of Regal's clout with distributors when Stonefield opened, and went the discount, $1.50 movie route in November. Manager Raymond Kilburn says business isn't bad, but he's still trying to spread the word that moviegoers can wait a little and save a lot.

After Stonefield opened and Regal turned its downtown theaters into an arthouse, that hurt Vinegar Hill, too, says Kilburn. He notes that Vinegar Hill, besides having to pay for expensive, $60,000 digital projectors, suffered from its age and lack of parking. "I feel sad," he says. "I used to love going to see art films there."

When Ann Porotti and then-husband Chief Gordon opened the converted garage and motorcycle showroom on Market Street on Valentine's Day in 1976, the Downtown Mall was just getting under way as a pedestrian mall, and there was little after 5pm to draw people.

Former mayor Kay Slaughter lived in Madison County before moving here and came to Vinegar Hill to see the edgy and foreign films she was used to from DC. "Vinegar Hill really opened Charlottesville as a cosmopolitan spot," she says. She credits Porotti for helping revitalize the Downtown Mall with the movie theater and Fellini's.

Reid Oeschlin spent 24 years of his life working at Vinegar Hill, from the summer of 1980 to "around 2004," and he, too, cites the cinema, along with businesses like Williams Corner Bookstore and C&O, as key to keeping the Mall in its early days from sliding into oblivion. "I think it was sort of a community within a community," he says.

The theater ran a repertory schedule of four programs a week of foreign and classic American films, says Oeschlin. Regulars could see three double features, and with a midnight movie, a total of seven movies were possible in one week.

"At Vinegar Hill, it was always the regulars that kept the doors open, and the crowds that showed up for Casablanca bought the equipment," he says.

Casablanca and To Have and Have Not were a particularly good pairing that had people queued up down the street to get one of the 219 seats inside, recalls Oeschlin. "The idea that people would line up for an old movie— one that they'd seen before— that was a special time," he says.

For Oeschlin, it wasn't so much the Vinegar Hill building itself as what happened inside— the closeness of people sharing the same experience in the dark.

As projectionist, "I would stand in the back of the theater at times because I knew there would be a reaction— a gasp or applause or cracking up," he says. "In movies now, the soundtrack is so loud, you can't tell what the audience reaction is. We're insulated from each other."

Slaughter, too, notes the community aspect of Vinegar Hill, which had its own film festival as well as serving as a venue for the Virginia Film Festival, and could be rented for private screenings. "Everyone likes to eat local; this was screen local," she says.

The occasional hit, like Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, helped keep the the theater afloat, but those became harder and harder to obtain. "We rely on having a big hit every season," says Ford, who's worked at the theater the past five years. "They became more difficult to get, and it got to the point that we could only get previously shown movies."

They tried to go back to screening classics, like Breathless, Cary Grant movies, and The Lost Boys on Halloween. "That was fun, says Ford. "But the reality is we can't afford to remain open and build that audience."

Vinegar Hill screened Josh Whedon's Much Ado about Nothing for its last day, and also offered late showings of Frances Ha. And in between the screenings, t-shirts, tote bags, and mugs were on sale for $5, and some of the theater's hundreds of movie posters went three-for-$5.

"We really hope people can come out and watch a movie," said Ford. And then on August 4, the screen went dark at Vinegar Hill forever.

13 comments

almost missed the one sentence that mentions direct competition in their niche when the other theatre started showing art films, had to skip past the typical wal mart untruths and whining.

pretty good business that didnt see stonefield coming, I mean that opened overnight, wish there had been time to adapt or change model eh.

Angel Eyes. August 2nd, 2013 | 8:40pm

I wouldn't feel too bad about this. Give that brand new 14 screen complex 10 years and weeds will be growing in the parking lot and the owners will be trying to figure out what they can do to repurpose the building. Movies will still be around, but the movie house will be dead as the Dodo.

really? August 3rd, 2013 | 7:21am

Glad to hear movies will still be around ten years from now. The movie house will never die in my humble opinion. I like my home theater but it is no replacement for the big screen. Unless movies are uploaded into our brains like the Matrix which just does not seem as fun. If you grew up here watching movies at Vinegar Hill you might feel a little bad about this. However life is always changing, that's what life is.

sad to see it go August 3rd, 2013 | 8:42am

Stop the whining, and stop blaming external sources for the theater's problems.

-----"The reason for our closing," says Ford, "was a more common one— a locally owned traditional business being replaced by a chain, the same that happens with small businesses when a Walmart opens."

The simple and more honest explanation for the failure of Vinegar Hill is that its management forgot the formula that made it worth caring about.

---"The theater ran a repertory schedule of four programs a week of foreign and classic American films, says Oeschlin. Regulars could see three double features, and with a midnight movie, a total of seven movies were possible in one week.

"At Vinegar Hill, it was always the regulars that kept the doors open, and the crowds that showed up for Casablanca bought the equipment," he says.""

Mr. Silk August 4th, 2013 | 7:59am

It's just a different time now. A different Charlottesville.

p.s. who on earth thought the facade of the new Hyatt at Stonefield was attractive. What a nightmare!!!

The simple and more honest explanation for the failure of Vinegar Hill is that its management forgot the formula that made it worth caring about.

Oh please - you know, as technology develops and the economy moves on, some business models simply cease to function. This is hardly due to some moral or managerial failing. There are plenty of buggy whip makers who probably did see the automobile coming and yet, went out of business anyway...sometimes your market just goes away.

It gets quite tiresome to constantly listen to people who want to blame bad luck or a changing system on some kind of personal failure. There is very little, in fact, that anyone could do with that building, the screen size (which is hardly larger than what is readily becoming available at home) and the dynamics of the movie industry. I'm impressed Visualite kept it going as long as they did.

I'm sure they saw Stonefield coming, and frankly, Stonefield isn't their competition - the downtown Regal is, now that it has moved into the same market niche. They may not have expected Regal to move into the Art-movie market but it did make sense for the Downtown Mall crowd.

Vinegar Hill had one screen - a small screen - and not enough room to add screens or enlarge for the newer-bigger-better sound and effects. They no longer owned the market niche for art-house in c'ville. C'ville has changed, as Mr. Silk says; it is no longer the same town (by a long shot) as when Chief Gordon and Ann Porotti opened it up.

I believe the movie industry will be around in another decade and longer, but I'm quite skeptical "movie houses" will be. The original market driver for these, as much as anything, was air-conditioning. They are horribly expensive in sunken costs: large structures occupying lots of land with pretty expensive projection equipment. As home playback equipment gets better and better and the cost of tickets and concessions gets higher and higher, the adverse selection already driving consolidation and the growth of mega-plexes will only get worse and worse. Expect Carmike to vanish and Regal to be about it, with the downtown screens getting all the small-budget indie/art-house stuff and the blockbusters in Stonefield. I don't know what kind of sweetheart tax deals Lee Daniels got for the rink and cinema, but that is very expensive real estate for a low revenue business.

All my own hair August 6th, 2013 | 5:46pm

It's not you it's me...
When I can catch a movie at my house with a perfect screen with great sound and no one else talking, i feel so less nostalgic for overpriced snacks and sticky floors. Thanks Vinegar Hill for all the great movies over the years but I've moved on and I wish you the best.

Beast Of The Southern Wild August 6th, 2013 | 8:10pm

You and I both know it's me. I wish Sticky were here with the both of us, in the flesh as well as in the spirit.

Sam Sampson August 7th, 2013 | 10:31am

survival of the fittest, baby. Isn't that part of evolution, the mantra of the progressive left Charlottesville elite?

But yeah, it is easier to do the "blame Walmart" thing than to realize you have a failed business model that you couldn't adapt and make money.

Skin August 7th, 2013 | 12:22pm

I remember when that theater was a motorcycle shop.

Saw the "Gods must be crazy" at the place back in the 80's

fyi August 8th, 2013 | 1:33pm

The Charlottesville community rallied around and helped purchase the digital projector that was recently installed. Where is it now? In the Court Square Theater in Harrisonburg? Visulite just announced a new partnership with them. Including new digital projection! hmmmmm.......

Sarah Sargent August 14th, 2013 | 3:16pm

Very sad about this. Vinegar Hill was one of the big pluses for me about Charlottesville. So ironic, such a great art house has closed given the Virginia Film Festival is here in Charlottesville.

The Regal Downtown shows very few foreign films and very little of what they do show, independent or art though it may be, is of the calibre of what Vinegar Hill showed. And judging from the current offering, big budget drek is back now that VH has closed.